Cultural activities and excursions

Have fun learning Spanish

If you’re reading this it’s because you want to come to Seville to learn Spanish and you’re thinking about doing it with us. Would you like to know what makes us different from other schools?

In Giralda Center we believe our responsibility for your stay and learning doesn’t end when you leave the classroom. So we offer you an extracurricular program that you can choose to enjoy in the afternoon. Not only do we offer you the possibility of visiting Seville’s principal monuments, but also hidden spots invisible to tourists.

Always together with your teachers who actively and personally show you what they consider most important in their city.

Daily life of Spaniards

Besides this, we propose activities that allow you to get to know first-hand the customs and daily life of Spaniards and, especially, Sevillanos. As we know that no two students are alike, we offer a wide variety of possibilities to choose from.

You can participate in the ones you’re most interested in or all of them! For food lovers we have created our cooking sessions, routes to explore different tapas or our combination movie+dinner. For the more adventurous we have prepared urban routes on bikes or treasure hunts. And for the artist inside you, photography safaris, Sevillana dance classes or creative writing workshops.

Additional program for you

As you can see, Giralda Center offers you, together with the language course of your choice, an additional program with a minimum of free 8 hours per week to better know the cultural, social and leisure aspects of the city. A great opportunity to learn more while sharing with your companions and teachers the soul of Seville.

Types of activities

Share, taste and savor along the different gastronomic routes we propose: go out for tapas in bars, bodegas or restaurants, wine-tastings, beer-tastings and cooking classes.

One of the primary exponents of a country’s or city’s culture is without a doubt its gastronomy.

Going for tapas is easy in Seville because in this city tapas abound, sitting or standing, with friends, companions from work, with family or alone…

It’s a real ceremony going from bar to bar in search of the best tapas: thousands of bite-size sandwiches, fish in tasty sauces or fried, or marinated small fish, potato salad, stuffed eggplant, Iberian ham or cheese…are you tempted?

Seville, together with Venice and Florence, has one of the most extensive historical centers in Europe. So we invite you to discover the incomparable richness of its quarters: from the Alameda to Santa Cruz, from La Macarena to Triana and from San Bernardo to La Encarnacion.

Apart from the programmed visits to the most well-known monuments in the city (Giralda Catedral, Plaza de España, Alcazar and Archivo de Indias) we show you churches and Mudejar palaces (San Marcos and Palacio de la Algaba), street markets for art and antiques (Plaza del Museo), trendy zones (Calle Regina) or gastronomic markets like those in Triana and Calle Feria.

We also offer you our bike routes; along these you’ll discover Seville’s parks, the singularity of the shores of the Guadalquivir River, historic and contemporary bridges or Isla de la Cartuja.

And if you are one of those who like to discover what isn’t seen in plain sight, we propose a walk through streets with mystery, taverns with a living history or legends that make Seville a city full of mystic.

Let us show you some examples:

Visit to the Santa Cruz quarter

Every month students can take a tour of the famous “Barrio Santa Cruz” where the school is located. Students get to know the streets and sites, their history, and, of course, their stories and legends.

Visit to the Arenal quarter

We frequently offer a guided tour of the Arenal neighborhood where you will find some of the most famous monuments and typical spots of the city: the banks of the Guadalquivir river where the famous Torre del Oro (Gold Tower) overlooks the Triana district on the other side of the river, the Maestranza bullring and museum of bullfighting, the Royal Opera House and many others.

Visit to the Royal Palace of the Alcázar

The Alcázar of Seville, voted a World Heritage site, is just 150 meters from the school and one of the city’s most popular/important excursions. Inside the walls, students encounter a mudéjar-style palace that is still used as a royal residence, as well as its marvelous and expansive gardens.

Visit to the Cathedral and the Giralda Tower

A scant 50 meters from the school and also declared Worldwide Heritage, this is a visit that can’t be missed. Seville’s cathedral is the third largest in the world, exceeded only by St. Peter’s in Vatican City and St. Paul’s in London. The Giralda–the minaret of the mosque that originally occupied this site–offers an incredible panoramic view of the city.

Visit to María Luisa Park and the Plaza de España

We start our visit at the Plaza de España, symbol of the Expo of ’29, and then stroll through the park until arriving to the Plaza de América. There you find the Archaeology Museum, the Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions and the Royal Pavilion, where students can enjoy a refreshing drink in one of the most famous terraces in the city.

Learning is your objective and helping you is ours.

Our extra-curricular language workshops, with proposals for grammar and vocabulary, will help you to review and better understand concepts in Spanish that at times aren’t very clear: the difference between por and para, ser and estar, use of the subjunctive, etc…

To work on these skills we’ve designed creative activities to practice writing, reading and oral expression: cultural and entertaining workshops doing “calligrammes” and gymkhanas.

So that you get a deeper understanding of Seville’s most popular festivities, we organize round-tables on the April Fair or Holy Week in which students like you, as well as local people, participate.

We also want you to feel the cultural pulse of the city, so we propose viewing the culture from another perspective through shows or leisure activities, films, concerts, exhibitions, Sevillanas dance classes and flamenco performances.

Let’s give you some examples:

Spanish music workshop

Students learn to listen to and understand songs in Spanish and are introduced to the wide world of Spanish music.

Reading workshop

Students learn reading techniques that will give them greater confidence when confronting Spanish texts. At the same time, students are introduced to the panorama of Spanish literature.

Writing workshop

Students develop strategies to write more efficiently, whether they are working on simple or more complex texts. These activities also stimulate creativity and give free rein to personal expression.

Grammar workshops

Have any doubts about Ser/Estar?, Por/Para? We’ve designed workshops for different levels and with a methodology based on the “gamification”, to help you overcome the peculiarities in Spanish.

Treasure hunt

Treasure hunts are a fun way to practice language while students deepen their cultural knowledge of the city and its people. Pairs or larger teams work against the clock to answer a series of questions by following clues to the end of their journey.

To travel is to live, to live is to learn…We propose well-known destinations such as Cordoba, Cadiz or Granada, as well as to discover other places hidden from the eyes of the conventional tourist: the treasures of the province of Seville and its pueblos.

Visit to Córdoba

The visit to Córdoba is the one most frequently requested by students. Students can enjoy a walk through the old Jewish quarter, which includes a visit to the synagogue and to the Mosque-Cathedral. There is also free time to enjoy the local food and tapas and to do some shopping.

Visit to Cádiz

The visit to Cádiz is also in high demand as a destination that brings together culture and pure pleasure. In Cádiz, students can enjoy a stroll through the city, including access to the camera obscura of the Tavira Tower and a magnificent afternoon on the beach.

Visit to Granada

Granada can be a day-trip or a weekend visit. In Granada, students can enjoy a visit to the Alhambra Palace and the gardens of the Generalife, stroll through the Albayzín neighborhood and its famous views, and take a walk through the city center where you can see the Moorish street market and the Chapel of Isabel and Ferdinand, the “Catholic Kings”.

Visit to Huelva province

Some 90 kilometers from Seville on the Atlantic coast, this trip includes a varied range of activities such as: a visit to the harbor where Christopher Columbus set sail and a museum recounting the first journeys to the new world; a visit to El Rocío village where the famous pilgrimage takes place every year and Doñana park, one of the largest nature reserves in Europe.

If you like hiking in the mountains, the northern tip of Huelva province offers plenty of natural beauty and the tasty possibility of visiting the region where the famous Iberian ham comes from.

Atlantic beaches

Just 45 minutes from Seville, the Atlantic coast of Huelva offers delicious gastronomy, relaxing beaches and a mild climate throughout the year.

We want to take you to the wild beaches of El Palmar, near Cadiz with its 8 Km of virgin coastline where you can do all kinds of water sports.

We also propose going to the beach of Bolonia, from where you can just make out the coast of Tangiers across the Straits of Gibraltar.

Next to the beach, surrounded by dunes of white sand, you can enjoy the second century BC Roman ruins of Baelo Claudia.

Another destination you don’t want to miss are the blue-water beaches of Isla de Tavira in Costa del Algarve (Portugal), only 90 minutes by car from Seville.

Province of Seville

The province of Seville offers an infinite number of options throughout its more that 100 villages: tourism, monuments, cultural visits, nature walks, gastronomic routes, it’s all there.

The province of Seville is full of nuances and has been witness to the mixture of peoples: from the legendary civilization of the Tartessian, to the passage of Romans and Arabs that has formed an extraordinary cultural map.

In the plains region you can discover the village of Carmona, cradle of Roman civilization with an impressive fortress wall.

Up the hill from Seville in the Aljarafe, you’ll find Santiponce, site of the group of monuments of Italica with its extraordinary amphitheater and the birthplace of the Roman emperors Trajano and Adrian.

Down the Guadalquivir the proposal is Utrera, cradle of flamenco; in the Sierra Norte, the mining zone of Almaden de la Plata and, finally, a visit to the leading region for rice cultivation in Spain, the marshlands of Lower Guadalquivir, including the Doñana Natural Park.

Morocco

The geographical situation of Seville is perfect for traveling to destinations so different from Europe like Morocco.

We organize specialized 1-day and weekend trips to experience the north of Morocco: Tangiers, Tetuan, Fez, Asilah or Chefchaouen in which we include transportation and guide from Seville, FastFerry from Algeciras or Tarifa (Cadiz), guided visits, hotels and insurance.

You mustn’t miss out on this opportunity to discover a fascinating continent.

Olive oil production & tasting excursions

An opportunity to visit an ancient country hacienda to learn how Virgin Olive Oil is produced and to appreciate the different varieties and tastes of this traditional Andalucian product.